Memories For Auctioneers
by Flock of Waa-Waas
Summary: The accumulated belongings of Diane Chambers tell the story of a life lived in search of her one true love, which may or may not be laid out right before her very eyes. Diane/Sam and Diane/Frasier in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: I was writing for something totally different, and this idea came to me. This is just the first portion of what I believe will be three or so parts, and I hope you guys enjoy it.**

* * *

Diane Chambers' first grown-up decision was made in aisle five of the hardware store. She had spent nearly an hour pawing through paint color cards shaded in vivid purples, pinks, and blues before landing on one in particular that appealed to her elementary school tastes.

"This one!" five-year-old Diane Chambers proclaimed, planting her little feet authoritively. She handed a color card to her family's butler, Boggs, who was in charge of helping the girl pick out a new wall color for her bedroom. Boggs stared down at the garish shade of plum and sighed. _Her mother won't be happy, but at least it's what the girl wants_ , he thought.

"Perfect choice, Miss Chambers," he droned.

They left the store with four gallon cans of plum paint, and upon returning back to the Chambers' residence, Boggs discovered that his assumption was correct.

"Plum? But plum is so... ordinary, dear," Helen Chambers explained to her daughter. "It's completely without nuance."

"Without... _nuance_?" Diane questioned, confused with her limited vocabulary.

"Yes, dear. You'll notice it when your entire room is painted with... this."

Still, somehow Boggs ended up clearing out what seemed like truckloads of the girl's stuffed animals, books, and other belongings to paint the room. When it was all done, Diane skipped in to assess the handiwork, an ice cream cone melting down her tiny fist. She stared at the wall quizzically for a moment, then let out a sigh.

"Mother was right," she began. "Plum is completely without nuance."

With that, she sashayed back down the hallway. That day, Diane decided that making grown-up decisions wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

* * *

The shouts of Helen and Spencer Chambers echoed through the walls of the Chambers' large estate. Diane, who was now twelve, wiped tears from her eyes as she sat solemnly on the edge of her bed. She stared down at the gray and white kitten beside her, and took a closer look at the heart-shaped charm dangling from the cat's collar.

" _Dearest Diane: Happy Birthday,"_ it read. She turned it over to the other side and saw, _"With love, Mother and Father_."

"You don't want this on you anyway, do you, Elizabeth?" Diane asked the cat. She undid the buckle, and slipped the collar from around her neck, quickly tossing it into a nearby desk drawer. Elizabeth purred in approval.

"See? We don't need that, do we?"

She snuggled the kitten closer, tears still staining her cheeks.

"Do we?" she repeated. Elizabeth replied with a slight mew.

"You're the only one that matters to me," she told the kitten. "I wouldn't be here without you."

Diane eyed the crumpled-up piece of paper that still sat on her desk. It was a note to her parents that she had written the night before, one that they would only come to find after she was long gone. For a fleeting moment, she thought that those words would mean something, but now they seemed so juvenile, even though she was only a girl aged twelve.

It was a new day, she decided, and with Elizabeth at her side, she didn't need anyone else.

* * *

How she ended up losing her virginity on a fold-out futon inside her parent's garage, she'll never know.

Helen Chambers had banished her daughter's first piece of dorm furniture to a permanent home in the garage over the summer before Diane headed off to the dorms of Bennington University, and the sound-proofed walls made for a quiet retreat for Diane and her boyfriend to finally do the deed.

The boy - a handsome, dark-haired young man with a smile that made her weak at the knees - had a thought to bring candles, a decision that Diane found appealing and very romantic. She lit them one by one, and placed them on the cement floor, as well as on top of a stack of storage boxes that contained some sort of Christmas decorum.

He wrapped his strong arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck from behind.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" he asked, flicking off the overhead light. She just nodded in reply, as she began to slide the straps of her dress down her shoulders. They shrugged off the rest of their clothes and began their foreplay under a bed sheet that Diane had dug out of storage.

The act itself was nothing special, really, and didn't live up to Diane's expectations that she had read about in books and poetry. The futon beneath them creaked with every move they made, and the sounds emitted from either one of them were admittedly anything but erotic. A wooden shelf above the futon held another lit candle, which tipped over during the action and dripped scalding hot wax onto the back of the futon, soon hardening into a hard puddle.

When the futon was later hauled off the truck on college move-in day, it was Helen, of course, to point out the mysterious blotches.

"See? I told you this thing was tacky! It's already stained!" she cried in disgust. "I don't even want to know what those are from!"

All that Diane could do was blush a deep shade of crimson.

* * *

While Diane readied herself for her first semester at Bennington College in Vermont, her summer fling prepared to head overseas in the army. She couldn't stand to look at him in that gaudy green uniform, but the final straw occurred when his dark curls of hair were shorn away by some Army captain, and in turn formed into a hideous crew-cut.

Their last date happened to be at the last go-to event of the summer: the fair. He insisted on buying her a bundle of cotton candy and tickets for the rides, and by the end of the night he had won her an adorable teddy bear from a carnival ring-toss game.

She didn't have the heart to tell him that night that she found his new haircut and lifestyle repulsive, as shallow as it seemed. Instead, she went home and placed the teddy bear on a shelf in her closet to get it out of her sight. She also tossed the slip of paper with his mailing address in the trashcan beside her vanity, into the abyss of things never to be seen again, and cracked open one of her purchased college textbooks to preoccupy her mind with her pre-law studies.

It wasn't always effective, but that night, Diane soon learned that binge-eating cotton candy was also one hell of a breakup remedy.

* * *

 **Author's Note: It has been a little while since I've written anything** ** _Cheers_** **related, and it has also been an unusually long time since I've watched any episodes, so I fact-checked some things with my Cheers "Bible,"** ** _Cheers: The Official Scrapbook_** **. The book claims that Diane attended Bennington University, which by a quick Google search appears to be in Vermont, so that's where that came from. For the life of me, I couldn't remember the specific university mentioned in the series, but oh well. This author's note is getting unruly, so I'll shut up for now. :) Let me know what you think of this so far.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I don't know what the latest glitch with this site is, but it's not letting me reply to reviews. Thanks so much to those who have read this and reviewed so far, and I hope you like the new chapter!**

 **~•~•~•~**

Saying goodbye to a loved one was always difficult, but for Diane to say goodbye to her dying father was downright brutal. She put her college studies on hold while her father was bedridden in the hospital, and it was always something that weighed on Spencer Chambers' mind.

 _Will she go back after I'm gone?_ he had wondered.

Their last conversation occurred on an ordinary weekday in July, in the same intensive care unit room that Spencer had occupied for nearly two weeks. He was incredibly weak and struggled to breathe, so Diane had to lean in close to the bed to hear him. Once an articulate speaker, Spencer's sentences were now pained and brief.

"Promise me something," he said, almost in a whisper.

She clutched his hand tighter. "What is it, Daddy?"

He pointed to the bedside table, at a small box that sat there in waiting.

"Grab that box."

She did as he requested, and noticed that it looked like a gift box, wrapped elaborately with a decorative ribbon tied on top.

"What is this?"

"Go back to school and graduate, and you'll find out," he said with a weak smile. "I had Boggs bring it. He'll take it and hold onto it, and give it to you on graduation day."

Diane set the package back on the table. "You know that I never much cared for surprises, don't you?"

"Elizabeth was a surprise gift. You seemed to warm up to her."

Diane shrugged with a smile. "Elizabeth was different."

"You'll just have to wait and see for this one. Follow through, and get your degree," he said adamantly.

He died overnight in his sleep after that conversation, and after a grieving period of a few weeks, Diane felt that she was ready to start school again. She did, and two years later she graduated with her first of many degrees.

After the graduation caps had been thrown triumphantly in the air, and congratulatory greetings had happened, Diane was greeted by Boggs, holding the same wrapped box that her father had in his hospital room two years before.

"For you, Miss Chambers," Boggs said as he handed it over.

Diane waited until she was alone to unwrap it, and when she tore away the paper, she found a jewelry box inside with a note attached to it. Carefully unfolding the note, she soon read her father's words:

 _Dear Diane,_  
 _Congratulations, Muffin! I am so proud of you for completing your studies, and I have decided to pass down a family heirloom to you. Keep it safe always, and I hope that one day you'll be able to pass it on to my grandchildren. I wish I could have been there to see you graduate._

 _I love you,_  
 _Daddy_

Tears stained Diane's cheeks as she opened the box to find her father's pocket watch inside, wrapped in a satin cloth. Memories of her childhood came flooding back, from sitting on his lap learning to tell time with the watch when she was just a small girl, to wondering if she would ever inherit the heirloom herself one day. The pocket watch had been passed down in her father's family for generations, but only amongst fathers and sons. It was remarkable that he left it to her.

She turned it over in her palm and noted that her father had had a jeweler engrave her initials into the gold backing, just as every prior owner had done before. As she looked down at those two little letters, _D.C_., she had to smile.

~•~•~•~

There were usually few perks to being a teacher's assistant besides the measly pay, but Diane soon found herself enjoying the company of her mentor, Sumner Sloan. The ongoing drawl of reading badly-written freshman essays over and over again was tiring, but somehow Sumner's wit made it all worthwhile.

He was known as one of the most disliked professors on campus for the sheer fact that he was a complete narcissist, but Diane was blinded to that fact because he had always treated her well. It never crossed her mind that she was just another student he was attempting to seduce for a night of passion and move on, as he had definitely done before.

Her birthday rolled around, and he brought her a stunning bouquet of pink roses, along with a book, _Sonnets of the Portuguese._ It was then that it donned on her that he was making his intentions clear.

"Sumner, thank you! Browning is one of my favorites," she said.

"Anything for you, my dear," he schmoozed. He watched intently as she flipped through the first few pages of the book.

"I love all of these," she gushed.

He smiled at her slyly. "This isn't all of my gift. I was wondering if you'd like to join me for dinner this evening. My treat."

And just like that, a book of poetry and a bouquet of roses morphed into a courtship, and later, an engagement. She pressed a few rose petals into the pages of the book before she put it in its rightful place on her packed bookshelf. Little did she know that the pressed roses would last longer than the relationship.

~•~•~•~

In all her years of working for Sumner at the college, he had never stooped to the level of scrawling her work schedule on a bar napkin. She knew from the second that she said yes to being a waitress at Cheers that Sam Malone was going to be a completely different type of boss.

"So, does tomorrow night work for you?" Sam asked Diane, with the cap from the pen clamped between his teeth.

"Well... I... I usually watch _Masterpiece Theatre_ on Sunday nights. Do you get PBS here?"

Sam smiled at her, and she admittedly wanted to simultaneously kiss him and slap him across the face.

"Sweetheart-"

"It's Diane," she snapped.

"Okay, Diane. Yes, we get PBS here. Will anyone at Cheers be watching it? No. We watch football, baseball, hockey... occasionally soccer or golf if there's absolutely nothing else on. Now when can you work?"

She wasn't going to give up. "Now why can't you watch something different in this bar every once in a while? Surely someone here has a little culture!"

She looked around to see Cliff and Norm shooting beer nuts through a straw at another barfly, snickering after each time one hit him. She looked back at Sam, who blatantly adjusted himself in his jeans right in front of her, as he continued to write out a random schedule.

"Never mind," she mumbled, cringing. "The only thing that would have culture in this place is a petri dish."

"What was that?" he looked up again, biting his lip in concentration, his blue eyes staring back into hers. She had to admit, he was handsome.

"Nothing. Just put me down for... whatever."

He continued scribbling on the napkin. "You know, if you work here, you might be able to afford a VCR to record all that PBS crap you like."

"Yes, I suppose that is a possibility-"

"Yeah, maybe if you work here for forty years!" Sam roared.

Diane rolled her eyes. "Are you finished yet?! I should be heading home."

He handed over the napkin, and she stuffed it in her purse and headed for the door.

"Thank you for this opportunity," she said mockingly.

"You're welcome. See you tomorrow."

She had almost made it out the door before whirling around. "But... _Masterpiece Theatre_!"

"Goodnight, Diane!"

With that, she left in a huff, and was sure to write a scathing rehashing of her terrible day in her diary when she returned home. Surprisingly, only half of her entry was about how Sumner went running back into the arms of his ex wife, and the other half was about her new, arrogant boss. She fastened the cocktail napkin into a blank page with a piece of tape, and wrote below it:

 _"Look at this. Can you believe I put up with this shit? The man is a PIG."_

She never even noticed that he had scrawled his phone number on the back, along with, "For a good time, call Mayday Malone."

~•~•~•~

Of all the people that Diane had met in her life, Carla Tortelli had to have been one of the worst. It's not like she didn't try to like her at first, lending her a forced compliment on her earrings shaped like cheese wedges and attempting to make small talk, but nothing worked.

Diane began to seek refuge in drawing caricatures of people that happened to be in the bar, and while she knew that she should be waiting tables, she couldn't pull herself away from her sketches once she started drawing. Sam wouldn't like or appreciate it, but in her eyes, she was adding something to Cheers. A little whimsical touch to a place she found to be a little ordinary.

After many failed attempts at capturing the exaggerated features of a few barflies on her drawing pad, she decided to give it up for a while. She also couldn't help but notice that Sam would look in her direction every once in a while and give her a disapproving look.

"I thought I told you to cut that out, Diane," he would say.

When closing time rolled around, all the glasses had been washed and put away and Coach and Carla had been sent home by Sam. It was just Sam and Diane alone at the bar. Sam was about to hand her her purse and drawing pad from behind the bar, when he stopped to look at a few of her sketches himself.

"What are you doing? Did I give you permission to look at those?!" she gasped. She lunged for the book, but he had it flipped to the page she really didn't want him to see: her caricature of Sam and Carla. Sam was depicted with the silliest look on his face, with his hand on his crotch to adjust himself, just as Diane had witnessed the night they worked out her schedule. Carla, on the other hand, was given a set of devil horns and an enormous gap between her teeth.

"That's Carla?" Sam asked with a chuckle. "Looks just like her, honestly. I like the horns."

Diane sighed. "Yes, I know it's juvenile, but that woman-"

Sam cut her off. "But who's the guy? He seems to be having a good time with himself."

Diane's face flushed. "Nobody. Just some guy that Carla waited on today."

Sam looked down at the drawing's striped shirt, then at his own. "Me?"

Diane shrugged in embarrassment. "Well, if the shoe fits..."

"Looks like I haven't left your mind since you met me, sweetheart," he said, tossing the book back to her. He turned away from her to the opposite end of the bar to count the receipts.

"I beg your pardon?!" Diane snapped. "I only drew what I saw, and what I witnessed today was basic public... indecency on your part! You can't just scratch yourself anywhere, any time you want!"

"Oh please, Diane, guys have gotta scratch sometimes. It's natural."

"Well, you go back to your cave tonight and scratch yourself into oblivion. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Diane. And I certainly will, thank you. But I won't have to do it myself, because Candi is coming over to do it for me."

She almost made it out the door before whirling around. "You're a PIG!"

"But I'm a happy one."

"UGH!" And with that, she walked out the door to go home. When she got back to her apartment, she tore out the caricature from the sketchpad, ripped off the side with Sam on it, and scrawled a title on the bottom:

"Man Whore In Retrograde: Does Evolution Really Exist?"

She affixed the drawing to her fridge with a magnet, and laughed every time she went to the fridge to make breakfast for at least a week.

With where she was in life, it was just the little things that gave her pleasure.

~•~•~

 **A/N: To be continued! This is just kind of a fun, experimental piece for me that I write for when I feel like it, but I'll try to get the next chapter written sooner rather than later!**


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